Studio portrait of 2007 Private (Pte) Hillary Austin Pike, 3rd Battalion. A trapper of Tumut, ...

Studio portrait of 2007 Private (Pte) Hillary Austin Pike, 3rd Battalion. A trapper of Tumut, NSW, he enlisted on 15 January 1915 and sailed from Sydney with the 5th Reinforcements on 13 April 1915 aboard HMAT Kyarra. He was killed in action at Gallipoli on 7 August 1915, aged 22, and was buried at Lone Pine Cemetery, Gallipoli. This photograph is from an Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau file. The Bureau, which commenced operation in October 1915, sought to identify, investigate and respond to enquiries made regarding the fate of Australian personnel. It investigated the majority of personnel posted as wounded and missing on official Army lists, as well as written enquiries from concerned relatives and friends. Approximately 32,000 individual case files were opened for Australian personnel who were reported as wounded or missing during the First World War. The Bureau employed searchers to operate both at the front and in Britain. They searched official lists of wounded and missing, interviewed comrades of missing soldiers in hospitals and wrote to men on active service. Altogether 400,000 responses were sent back to those who placed enquiries with the Bureau.